The energy industry has significant electrical power needs in all divisions of its business, including wells, pipelines, and refineries. Pumps, valves, sensors, and the like—all require power to function. This power can be consumed continuously and/or in discrete intervals. For instance, this power is typically supplied to a downhole well environment via tubing encapsulated cable (from the surface) or in situ via batteries. Similarly, devices in other sectors have like means of power delivery to remote equipment that include cables or batteries local to devices. Unfortunately, either scenario requires the frequent insertion and removal of equipment from a remote location such as the sea floor, well, or remote desolate pipeline which, in turn, leads to a reduction in efficiency.
Regarding above-mentioned cabled power scenarios, there are significant reliability concerns—particularly around the breakage of long lengths of cable. In a downhole well environment cables require holes in the packers, which can correspondingly decrease the pressure rating of any such packer through which they pass. Similarly, paths to remote locations via cable cause increase complexity and lower reliability of remote power systems.
In terms of such above-mentioned battery-powered scenarios, batteries utilized for such purposes will invariably have a finite life, thereby requiring intervention when they fail. Associated intervention costs and protocols would typically entail utilizing appropriate tools to change out the batteries, which in turn would likely result in lost production time (i.e., production would likely have to be halted). Downtime is a cross-function to other energy sector applications, decreasing the overall system efficiency.
In view of the foregoing, new methods and/or systems by which electrical power can be generated (and used) in remote locations would be extremely useful—particularly wherein it reduces the frequency in which equipment is replaced at the remote location.